Howard Barker: Ecstasy and Death

Howard Barker’s theatre is uniquely alluring and startlingly original, bringing together classical discipline, moral ruthlessness and transgressive eroticism, in a form and experience Barker terms Theatre of Catastrophe. His uniquely stylish and rigorous work as a director for his theatre company, The Wrestling School, challenges and breaks the limits of conventional theatre, to present haunting speculations on humanity in situations of crisis. He has also emerged as a major theorist on the possibilities of theatre, and on human specificity, and the importantly surprising powers of both. This study considers the full range of Barker’s theatrical and theoretical work in exploring and dramatizing life’s extremity, brevity and intensity, in order to create a moment of knowledge beyond the received terms of history.